The Conversation

Friday essay: projecting light onto a dark history – how mid-century cinema resurrected Port Arthur’s convict past

12-03-2020 Author: James Findlay, Sessional Lecturer in History, University of Sydney

State Library Victoria

Tourism was an early money-spinner in Tasmania, with Port Arthur featuring on travel circuits by the late 1800s.

In the years following the penal station’s closure in 1877, an influx of local and interstate tourists encouraged guides (including some ex-convicts) to set up shop at the settlement, walking visitors...

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